I'm clear that for the most part we, the people of
the world,
have gotten the ground rules for making a relationship work completely
confused.
It's drilled into us from childhood that making a relationship work is
a 50% / 50% paradigm, with each partner being responsible for their 50%
of the relationship.

If you look at that paradigm, it's not hard to see that while it's well
intentioned, the 50% / 50% paradigm for making a relationship work,
actually doesn't work - in fact it's never worked, ever. That means
we've never really been clear about what it takes to make a
relationship work in the first place.

The 50% / 50% paradigm for making a relationship work, doesn't work
because while it charges each of us to be 50% responsible for making
the relationship work (ie for our half of the
relationship), it also leaves room for each of us to be 50%
not responsible for making the relationship work. In other
words, the 50% / 50% paradigm for making a rellationship work, has a
50% not working (ie failure) rate already built in.
Those aren't good odds.

So rather, it's not a 50% / 50% paradigm that works for making a
relationship work with each partner being responsible for their 50% of
the relationship, but rather it's a 100% paradigm that works for making
a relationship work.

Wait!

Did you hear me say that it's a 100% / 100% paradigm that
works for making a relationship work with each partner being
responsible for 100% of it?

Not quite. That's close, but it's not exactly what I'm saying. What I'm
saying is it's a 100% paradigm that works for making a relationship
work. In other words, I'm responsbile for all of the
relationship, independently of you being responsible for
any of it or all of it or even none of it. In this paradigm, you're
free to choose to be responsible for 100% of the relationship too, and
you don't have to. And listen: it's the "... and you don't have
to" qualifier that allows the space for love. Really.

People are inspired and enlivened in a relationship that works. That's
really what everyone wants. And yet for the most part, our established
paradigm for making a relationship work, the 50% / 50% paradigm,
doesn't work. Because of that, when played out against a background of
"it's empty and meaningless", "Anything goes!" starts to
look like a viable option, as we try out new ways of being in
relationship in the hope of finding a way that actually works. That's
kind of hit and miss, isn't it?

Workability in a relationship can be elusive. Yet if you take on being
100% responsbile for making a relationship work, allowing your partner
to be free to choose to be responsible for 100% of the relationship too
(and they don't have to), you'll discover you've put in place a
foundation that's count-on-able - a rare commodity in a 50% / 50%
paradigm.